


Waking

by yuffiehighwind



Series: An Eternity in Cheese Country [23]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Dual Identity, Gen, Milwaukee, Modern Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-01
Updated: 2005-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 18:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4929601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuffiehighwind/pseuds/yuffiehighwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Discord can't sleep. Neither can Strife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the 'fic series "An Eternity in Cheese Country," and here's why - after they were killed by Callisto and Xena, the souls of Strife, Discord, and Deimos were reincarnated in the late 20th century into three humans named Steve, Veronica, and Dave.

You remember it differently. In bits and pieces, of course, because dreams fade with each minute after you wake up unless you tell it over and over. But then the dream changes, new parts added and others edited out. The dream becomes a _dream_ of a dream, and all reality, even imagined, is lost. Replaced. Unfocused.

It's that hour again, when thoughts never previously pondered seize your mind and all you can do is try to jolt yourself awake before every shadow shakes your wits. Welcome to the invention of coffee! An awake mind is not always a _clear_ mind, so there are problems with the theory. The entire undertaking should just be abandoned in favor of sleep, but what if sleep is too frightening? Dreams hearkening back to a time when corpses hung bloody and ragged from trees and you can't blow chunks because some force isn't letting you? It laughs mockingly and points fingers. You can't remain on the battlefield any longer; it shakes the soul too badly. The images fade in waking, but there's still that laugh.  
  
Turns out it's not the laugh at all. It's another's chuckle, and you're not the only one awake. You gaze across the kitchen counter at a television set that doesn't quite look like it's going to swallow you whole and a lightswitch banishes all eerie shadows to the daytime mundane. The illusion of sun is a blessing up there on your list with coffee. A smile enters the room and your stomach groans, not from the blood in your nightmares, but from anticipated annoyance. Bed is looking good again. The smile doesn't even need to open up into speech; the giggle - barely contained - is enough to strike dread into the hearts of mortal men and you know what's surely coming, so you step step step and your finger meets his lips. A hand reaches up to touch your coffee mug and gets your gripping fingers instead. Warm. No, surely just the coffee. "Hey there," he says, but it's not spoken aloud, just barely mouthed, moving against your fingertip. Tickle. Warm. Surely that was suitable enough to shut him up, and away we go, hand. But another hand, his, grabs the runaway and draws it back up to his lips again in a kiss. Air escapes your lips and his other hand doesn't let coffee fall when your grip fails. It's like this when reality doesn't make sense anymore, fading in and out of dreams. "Good morning," he breathes. You can only smile.  
  



End file.
